The Birth of Venus in paintings

The Birth of Venus
in paintings

Throughout the ages, stories with certain basic themes have recurred over and over,
in widely disparate cultures;
emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious.
Joan Vinge (b. 1948), writer

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
The Birth of Venus
c. 1485
Tempera on canvas, 172.5 x 278.5 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
The Birth of Venus (detail)
c. 1485
Tempera on canvas
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BOUGUEREAU, William-Adolphe
The Birth of Venus
1879
Oil on canvas, 300 x 215 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1879

CABANEL, Alexandre
The Birth of Venus
1863

CABANEL, Alexandre
1863

BOUCHER, François
The Birth of Venus also known as The
Triumph of Venus
1740
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

BOUCHER, François
The Birth of Venus also known as The
Triumph of Venus (detail)
1740
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

FRAGONARD, Jean-Honoré
The Birth of Venus
1753-1755
Oil on canvas
Musée Grobet-Labadié, Marseille

1753-1755
Oil on canvas
Musée Grobet-Labadié, Marseille

DELVAUX, Paul
Birth of Venus
1947
Oil on canvas, 140x210 cm
Private collection

DELVAUX, Paul
Birth of Venus (detail)
1947
Oil on canvas, 140x210 cm
Private collection

BAIRD, Edward MacEwan
The Birth of Venus
1934
Oil on canvas, 51.00 x 69.00 cm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
- National Galleries of Scotland,
Edinburgh

1934
Oil on canvas, 51.00 x 69.00 cm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
- National Galleries of Scotland,
Edinburgh)

VASARI, Giorgio
The Birth of Venus
1550
Fresco
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

VASARI, Giorgio
1550
Fresco
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

The Birth of Venus in Paintings
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VASARI, Giorgio
The Birth of Venus
Venus is in the middle, standing on a shell, surrounded by divine and sea creatures paying homage to her: on the left is
Teti, on the opposite side is the god of the sea Neptune,
“il quale sta ammirato e immoto a vedere surgere dall’onde quella Dea tanto bella”
(who stands still and full of admiration for such a beautiful Goddess coming out of the waves). Then there are the Tritons
and the Nereids, offering shells, pearls, corals, the purple, motherpearls.
During the reign of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, the Palazzo Vecchio was transformed, from being
merely the seat of the government, it also became the residence of the Lord of Florence. On the second floor
were the apartments of the Elementi, the elements, with their five rooms and two loggias decorated with symbolic
paintings.
The Birth of Venus is symbolizing Water in the Room of Elements.

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus is undoubtedly one of the world’s most famous and appreciated works of art. Painted by Sandro
Botticelli between 1482 and 1485, it has become a landmark of XV century Italian painting, so rich in meaning and
allegorical references to antiquity.
The theme comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a very important oeuvre of the Latin literature. Venus is portrayed naked
on a shell on the seashore; on her left the winds blow gently caressing her hair with a shower of roses, on her right a
handmaid (Ora) waits for the goddess to go closer to dress her shy body. The meadow is sprinkled with violets, symbol of
modesty but often used for love potions.

The Birth of Venus
At the center of the painting, Venus stands nude on a scallop shell being pulled by a dolphin, one of her symbols. Fifteen
putti, including Cupid and Psyche, and several nymphs and centaurs have gathered to witness Venus' arrival. Most of the
figures are gazing at her, and two of the centaurs are blowing into conch and Triton shells, signaling her arrival.
Venus is considered to be the embodiment of feminine beauty and form, and these traits are shown in the painting. Her
head is tilted to one side, and her facial expression is calm, comfortable with her nudity.
To the upper-left of the painting, there is a shadow in the clouds. It appears to be the silhouette of the artist, with a head,
shoulder, arm, and a raised fist that would seem to hold a paintbrush

CABANEL, Alexandre
The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus was one of the great successes of the 1863 Salon where it was bought by Napoleon III for his private
collection.
Cabanel took as his subject a famous episode from classical mythology when Venus is born of sea-foam and carried ashore. This
theme, very popular in the 19th century, provided some artists with the opportunity to introduce eroticism without offending
public morality, under the pretext of representing a classical subject. For Cabanel, the mythological theme is indeed a pretext for
the portrayal of a nude figure, which, though idealised, is nonetheless depicted in a lascivious pose.
Emile Zola denounced this ambiguity: "The goddess, drowned in a sea of milk, resembles a delicious courtesan, but not of flesh
and blood – that would be indecent – but made of a sort of pink and white marzipan". The writer was thus deploring the use of a
pale, smooth and opalescent palette.
That same year, Edouard Manet's Olympia caused a scandal. The subject of the two paintings is identical: a reclining nude. But
the calm assurance with which Manet's subject stares back at the viewer seems much more provocative than the languid pose of
Cabanel's Venus.

BOUCHER, François
The Birth of Venus also known as The Triumph of Venus
Venus, the story goes, was born of the sea. She was the fruit of Uranus' amputated genitals, which fell to earth and, in their
union with the sea, generated the Goddess of Love.
She hovers on a canopy of mother-of-pearl, upholstered with pink and pearl-grey silk and held up by the winds and cupids. She
is attended by a court of white naiads and bronzed tritons.
Gods, dolphins, fabrics, water, clouds together make up a swirling movement which Boucher has painted in cold colours: blue
and turquoise. Both composition and colours belong to the Rococo. The sea blends with a greyish-blue sky and the horizon is
not easily distinguishable.

The Birth of Venus
Fragonard's work for the most part has a very charming look to it, it's very sweet in a sense. This painting feels very
balanced because of its diagonal composition that seems to split the canvas. The colors are very pastel-like.
Venus looks almost like a doll, and the figures around her seem to almost melt into the ocean with the blue pastel-like
chaotic waves.

DELVAUX, Paul
Birth of Venus
Like his contemporaries Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, Delvaux used bizarre subject matter rather than abstraction as
a means of expressiveness. In so doing, he created uncomfortable scenes that were designed to emotionally shock the viewer.
Nude women are a hallmark of Delvaux's work. They exist somewhere between the realm of statuary and of sex objects, and
their very ambiguity is one of the most arresting and confounding features of Delvaux's paintings.
Delvaux's paintings depict bizarre scenes that bring together elements that don't make sense. His highly naturalistic painting
technique compounds the uneasy feeling of his scenes. That such peculiar things are depicted within such believable spaces -
without any abstraction of forms and with a bright light that leaves nothing in murky shadow - is disquieting.

The Birth of Venus
This painting is a rare example of Scottish Surrealism. It was painted as a wedding present for the artist James McIntosh
Patrick.
McIntosh Patrick said of Baird's gift, “It rather shocked me as he painted so few pictures yet he gave this one away. He
was our best man and, being a sentimental person, he chose Venus, the goddess of love, as the subject of the painting. He
was a keen Scottish Nationalist; he also admired Botticelli and Crivelli, the Renaissance painters. Hence the 'Scottish
Venus' as he called it, arose out of his associations with a wedding, his involvement with Scottish Nationalism, his love for
messing about in boats, and his love of Botticelli.”

In Roman mythology, Venus was the goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility. She was the Roman
counterpart to the Greek Aphrodite. However, Roman Venus had many abilities beyond the Greek
Aphrodite; she was a goddess of victory, fertility, and even prostitution.
According to Hesiod's Theogony, Venus-Aphrodite was born of the foam from the sea after Saturn
(Greek Cronus) castrated his father Uranus (Ouranus) and his blood fell to the sea.
This latter explanation appears to be more a popular theory due to the countless artworks
depicting Venus rising from the sea in a clam.

The Birth of Venus in paintings

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